guyadams291 - @Guy Adams

Last month, the Children’s Future Food Inquiry ambassador Dame Emma Thompson joined young ‘Food Ambassadors’ at Westminster to deliver a new report which calls for an independent Children’s Food Watchdog to lead the charge on tackling children’s food insecurity in the UK.

The Children’s Future Food Inquiry is the first attempt to directly and systematically seek the views of children and young people living in poverty across the UK. It has spent 12 months investigating children’s food insecurity in each of the four UK nations, and the project’s final report pulls together direct input from hundreds of young people, the front line staff, academics and experts.

“In a wealthy society that claims to value compassion and humanity, how can we tolerate the injustice of millions of children going hungry?” asks Thompson. “In face of the government’s refusal to help, the Children’s Future Food Inquiry has brought together hundreds of young people to hear about their lived experience of food poverty, and it’s time we listened to what they say. It’s the younger generation who will deliver the change that’s so urgently needed: we must act now to ensure every child in the UK has their right to food.”

The #Right2Food Charter included in the report presents the Inquiry’s young ‘Food Ambassadors’ (aged between 10 and 18 years) own recommendations for loosening the grip of food poverty on children in the UK and improving their access to enough nutritious food. Their key proposal is for a new Children’s Food Watchdog, which will stand as an independent body with children and young people involved in its leadership.